• Composites Research
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.56-63
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• 2007

An approach using complex potentials is presented for analysis of composite plate with an elliptical hole or a rectilinear crack. Composite structure is susceptible to encounter impact damages, which lead to considerable decrease in its residual strength. Such impact damages could be modeled as an equivalent elliptical hole or notch-like crack. Even though finite element method is widely used to analyze stresses or fracture mechanics parameters around such damage, it is tedious to make successive FE-modeling for damage tolerance assessment under fatigue loadings. In this point of view, the solutions based on complex potentials are very simple and easy to use. The computed results are also compared and discussed with those from FEA.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.2
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• pp.181-197
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• 2024

A numerical method is presented in this paper, for buckling analysis of thin arbitrary stiffened composite cylindrical shells under axial compression. The stiffeners can be placed inside and outside of the shell. The shell and stiffeners are operated as discrete elements, and their interactions are taking place through the compatibility conditions along their intersecting lines. The governing equations of motion are obtained based on Koiter's theory and solved by utilizing the principle of the minimum potential energy. Then, the buckling load coefficient and the critical buckling load are computed by solving characteristic equations. In this formulation, the elastic and geometric stiffness matrices of a single curved strip of the shell and stiffeners can be located anywhere within the shell element and in any direction are provided. Moreover, five stiffened composite shell specimens are made and tested under axial compression loading. The reliability of the presented method is validated by comparing its numerical results with those of commercial software, experiments, and other published numerical results. In addition, by using the ANSYS code, a 3-D finite element model that takes the exact geometric arrangement and the properties of the stiffeners and the shell into consideration is built. Finally, the effects of Poisson's ratio, shell length-to-radius ratio, shell thickness, cross-sectional area, angle, eccentricity, torsional stiffness, numbers and geometric configuration of stiffeners on the buckling of stiffened composite shells with various end conditions are computed. The results gained can be used as a meaningful benchmark for researchers to validate their analytical and numerical methods.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.813-832
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• 2016

This research deals with the behavior of Composite Box Girder Bridges (CBGBs) subjected to environmental effects such as solar radiation, atmospheric temperature, and wind speed. It is based on temperature and thermal stress results, which were recorded hourly from a full-scale experimental CBGB segment and Finite Element (FE) thermal analysis. The Hemi-cube method was adopted to achieve the accuracy in temperature distributions and variations in a composition system during the daily environmental variations. Analytical findings were compared with the experimental measurements, and a good agreement was found. On the other hand, parametric investigations are carried out to investigate the effect of the cross-section geometry and orientation of the longitudinal axis of CBGB on the thermal response and stress distributions. Based upon individual parametric investigations, some remarks related to the thermal loading parameters were submitted. Additionally, some observations about the CBGB configurations were identified, which must be taken into account in the design process. Finally, this research indicates that the design temperature distribution with a uniform differential between the concrete slab and the steel girder is inappropriate for describing the thermal impacts in design objective.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.751-759
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• 2018

Glass fibre reinforced polymers (GFRP) are widely exploited in many industrial branches. Due to this Structural Health Monitoring systems containing embedded fibre optics sensors are applied. One of the problems that can influence on composite element durability is water contamination that can be introduced into material structure during manufacturing. Such inclusion can be a damage origin significantly decreasing mechanical properties of an element. A non-destructive method that can be applied for inspection of an internal structure of elements is THz spectroscopy. It can be used for identifications of material discontinuities that results in changes of absorption, refractive index or scattering of propagating THz waves. The limitations of THz propagation through water makes this technique a promising solution for detection of a water inclusion. The paper presents an application of THz spectroscopy for detection and localisation of a water drop inclusion embedded in a GFRP material between two fibre optics with fibre Bragg grating sensors. The proposed filtering method allowed to determine a 3D shape of the water drop.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.50-61
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• 2012

In recent years, various research and developments to introduce composite bridges of new concept have been performed. The types of integral bridge and portal rigid frame bridge are having advantages in bridge maintenance and structural efficiency by eliminating expansion joints and bridge supports. However, the detail of typical girder-abutment connection has problems such as complexity of construction and increase of the construction cost. A new type of bridge, called prestress integral composite girder(PIC girder) bridge, is proposed in this study, which decreases the cost of construction and improves the efficiency of construction by simplifying the detail of construction for girder-abutment connection. PIC girder bridge has the connection detail in which the steel girder and the abutment are integrated by using the PS bar installed in the connection. In this study, finite element analysis and mock-up load test are conducted to evaluate the propriety of design, the effective of fabrication and structural safety for PIC girder bridge. The adequacy of the PIC giredr bridge is verified by the results of static/dynamic load test and finite element analyses.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.34-45
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• 2010

This paper describes the design, manufacturing process, testing, application, and assessment of capacity-ratings of the first all advanced composites bridge on a public highway system. In order to verify the bridge design prior to the field application, a sub-scale bridge superstructure was built and tested in the laboratory. The field load test results were compared with those of the finite element analysis for the verification of validity. To investigate its in-service performance, field load testing and visual inspections were conducted under an actual service environment. The paper includes the presentation and discussion for advanced composites bridge capacity rating based on the stress modification coefficients obtained from the test results. The test result indicates that the advanced composites bridge has no structural problems and is structurally performing well in-service as expected. Since these composite materials are new to bridge applications, reliable data is not available for their in-service performance. The results may provide a baseline data for future field advanced composites bridge capacity rating assessments and also serve as part of a long-term performance of advanced composites bridge.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.236-244
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• 2017

In this study, the high-velocity impact penetration behavior of $[45/0/-45/90]_{ns}$ carbon/epoxy composite laminates was studied. The considered configuration includes a spherical steel ball impacting clamped circular laminates with various thicknesses and diameters. First, the impact experiment was performed to measure residual velocity and extent of damage. Next, the impact experiment was numerically simulated through finite element analysis using LS-dyna. Three-dimensional solid elements were used to model each ply of the laminates discretely, and progressive material failure was modeled using MAT162. The result indicated that the finite element simulation yielded residual velocities and damage modes well-matched with those obtained from the experiment. It was found that fiber damage was localized near the impactor penetration path, while matrix and delamination damage were much more spread out with the damage mode showing a dependency on the orientation angles and ply locations. The ballistic-limit velocities obtained by fitting the residual velocities increased almost linearly versus the laminate diameter, but the amount of increase was small, showing that the impact energy was absorbed mostly by the localized impact damage and that the influence of the laminate size was not significant at high-velocity impact.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.255-266
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• 2017

In this study, self-supporting roofing elements especially convenient for large-span structures such as stadium, airport terminal, mall, coliseum, etc. were examined with respect to critical buckling load. These elements were assumed as laminated composite plates and, variation of free-edge forms, cutout types and lamination configurations were used as design parameters. Based on the architectural feature and structural requirements, the effects of curvilinear free-edge form on critical buckling load were focused on in this research. Within this scope, 14 types of lamination configuration were specified according to various orientation angle, number and thickness of plies with a constant value of total plate thickness. Besides that, 6 different types of cutout and 3 different free-edge forms were determined. By combining all these parameters 294 different critical buckling load analyses were performed by using ANSYS Mechanical software based on finite element method. Effects of those parameters on critical buckling load were evaluated referring to the obtained results. According to the results presented here, it may be concluded that lamination conditions have more significant influence on the critical buckling load values than the other parameters. On the other hand, it is perceived that curvilinear free-edge forms explicitly undergo changings depending on lamination conditions. For future work, existence of delamination might be considered and progression of the defect could be investigated by using non-linear analysis.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2017

Composite steel plate deep beam (CDB) is proposed as a lateral resisting member, which is constructed by steel plate and reinforced concrete (RC) panel, and it is connected with building frame through high-strength bolts. To investigate the seismic performance of the CDB, tests of two 1/3 scaled specimens with different length-to-height ratio were carried out under cyclic loads. The failure modes, load-carrying capacity, hysteretic behavior, ductility and energy dissipation were obtained and analyzed. In addition, the nonlinear finite element (FE) models of the specimens were established and verified by the test results. Besides, parametric analyses were performed to study the effect of length-to-height ratio, height-to-thickness ratio, material type and arrangement of RC panel. The experimental and numerical results showed that: the CDBs lost their load-carrying capacity because of the large out-of plane deformation and yield of the tension field formed on the steel plate. By increasing the length-to-height ratio of steel plate, the load-carrying capacity, elastic stiffness, ductility and energy dissipation capacity of the specimens were significantly enhanced. The ultimate loading capacity increased with increasing the length-to-height ratio of steel plate and yield strength of steel plate; and such capacity increased with decreasing of height-to-thickness ratio of steel plate and gap. Finally, a unified formula is proposed to calculate their ultimate loading capacity, and fitting formula on such indexes are provided for designation of the CDB.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.243-260
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• 2018

Detection of damages in fibre reinforced plastic (FRP) composite structures is important from the safety and serviceability point of view. Usually, damage is realized as a local reduction of stiffness and if dynamic responses of the structure are sensitive enough to such changes in stiffness, then a well posed inverse problem can provide an efficient solution to the damage detection problem. Usually, such inverse problems are solved within the framework of pattern recognition. Support Vector Machine (SVM) Algorithm is one such methodology, which minimizes the weighted differences between the experimentally observed dynamic responses and those computed using the finite element model- by optimizing appropriately chosen parameters, such as stiffness. A damage detection strategy is hereby proposed using SVM which perform stepwise by first locating and then determining the severity of the damage. The SVM algorithm uses simulations of only a limited number of damage scenarios and trains the algorithm in such a way so as to detect damages at unknown locations by recognizing the pattern of changes in dynamic responses. A rectangular fiber reinforced plastic composite plate has been investigated both numerically and experimentally to observe the efficiency of the SVM algorithm for damage detection. Experimentally determined modal responses, such as natural frequencies and mode shapes are used as observable parameters. The results are encouraging since a high percentage of damage cases have been successfully determined using the proposed algorithm.